Homerun or 1800?

[Grasshopper]

Hi folks,

I've taken the plunge to HD (finally) and am now endeavoring to obtain an HD input into Sage. I've determined that QAM tuning should suffice for my needs. I'm considering the HDHomerun and the Hauppage HVR-1800. Which has better picture quality? Which has better overall user experience?

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by Grasshopper

Which has better picture quality?

It depends on the camera you use to take the picture? No, in QAM mode, the data is digital at all points, so the picture is the same.

Originally Posted by Grasshopper

Which has better overall user experience?

User experience? How easy it set up? On cable, the HDHR is a pain to set up, but once you get the hang of configuring it, it's easy. The 1800 is very easy to set up.

Of the 2, if you had no reason to use analog TV, I'd get the HDHR, but I don't mind the set up. BTW, I've setup 3 HDHR's and 2 1800's.

[Grasshopper]

Hi Matt,

I already have two SD analog tuners, so I think I have that covered. But it sounds like it's hard to go wrong here and either one will work well. Thanks for the reply.

[Conejo]

HVR-1800
- the option of S-Video In
- Dual Tuner; (1) ATSC/QAM AND (1) NTSC (going obsolete)
- Plugs into PCI slot; no power supply needed
- ATSC/QAM direct channel discovery
- Setup can sometimes be a pain, especially if a card is flakey.

HDHR
- No S-Video In
- Dual Tuner; choice of ATSC or QAM, no NTSC
- LAN connect; can then be used by several computers
- Requires an external wall wart
- QAM CableTV setup requires building an ATSC translation file (remap) for SageTV and is limited to 68 possible channels. Otherwise, setup isn't that bad.

Neither device can be used with Encrypted Digital feeds so many people have opted to use a PVR-HD that can capture the HD output from a Cable or Satellite STB and encode it for recording.

/These statements not applicable in all nations
/Your cash allowance may vary
/Research before buying

[blade]

I had a couple of 1600's and the HDHomeRun was far superior in my experience. It would tune channels the 1600's couldn't and the 1600's were very blocky. I've never used the 1800 so I don't know how it compares.

[fyodor]

I'll add that Silicon Dust has super helpful and responsive technical support. Vastly better than anything I've seen from any other company.

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by fyodor

I'll add that Silicon Dust has super helpful and responsive technical support. Vastly better than anything I've seen from any other company.

I can concur with the above statement.

[kevine]

Concur with this as well.

[Taddeusz]

Silicon Dust has supposedly introduced direct QAM tuning into the HDHR drivers. Technically SageTV should be able to use this interface to work around the 68 channel limit imposed by Microsoft.

[Taddeusz]

I suppose it hasn't been implemented in non-beta drivers yet but here is a bullet from the 20080506beta1 built of their driver:

* Add AutoDemodulate API (useful for applications that support native digital cable)

So, as soon as they release a driver newer than the current 20080430 driver we should be able to have direct QAM tuning with the HDHR.

[Grasshopper]

Thanks, folks. Looks like the HD Homerun is the consensus choice.

[taylork]

Originally Posted by Grasshopper

Thanks, folks. Looks like the HD Homerun is the consensus choice.

HDHR's are nice. Setup can be a pain, but once you've got it set -- they just work. BTW, the current 68 channel limitation is being address. Thread discussing it is here.

[BFisher]

Just to add an opposing view... I don't use HDHR - instead having 3 PCIe cards in my machine. I opted for this route instead due to concerns about network bandwidth. I have 5 extenders, and 6 tuners (3 HD antenna, 3 DirecTV STB) - and was afraid if we were using 2-3 extenders while recording 2 HD off HDHR that it would overtax the network.

I have nothing to base this on... just a fear. I've never regretted using internal cards... works great.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by BFisher

Just to add an opposing view... I don't use HDHR - instead having 3 PCIe cards in my machine. I opted for this route instead due to concerns about network bandwidth. I have 5 extenders, and 6 tuners (3 HD antenna, 3 DirecTV STB) - and was afraid if we were using 2-3 extenders while recording 2 HD off HDHR that it would overtax the network.

I have nothing to base this on... just a fear. I've never regretted using internal cards... works great.

I was concerned about that as well. So I have two network cards in my machine. The one built into the NF4 chip is connected to a switch which connects to my HDHR. I had the HDHR directly connected but I had issues with it getting an IP address whenever I would reboot my server. I have a second Intel PCIe gigabit adapter connected to the rest of the network. Both adapters have static IP addresses on different subnets and I have a DHCP server running on the NF4 NIC so that the HDHR will get an address.

[kevine]

If you have a Gbit network, there is no worry about taxing the network. It is important to note that the HDHRs are Mbit devices and not Gbit. You need Gbit for the tunnel that is your server. Think of it as the gateway to your media. Everything has to pass through there. Gbit card connected to a Gbit router/switch are key.

I have 3 MVPs and 2 HDHRs. Recording HDTV on all four and playback on all 3 at the same time tweaked my Gbit card throughput at a whopping 7%.

[brb84]

I have had 2 1600's for about a year now and am pretty much ready to toss them out the window. The analog tuners work fine. The digital ones work OK for the most part, although one of them tends to have a 5-10 minute delay anytime it tries to tune to a station (which often means I randomly lose the first 5 minutes of shows). They seem to be extremely touchy about getting perfect signal strength to pick anything up.

I avoided the HDHR because it was more expensive, but I think I'm about to give it a try.

[BFisher]

I have the 1800 (I believe same thing, different bus) and haven't seen any of those problems. Digital OTA picture is good, no complaints. Maybe you are using old drivers?

[brb84]

I'm using QAM, not OTA. It's worth mentioning that I had less problems with the 1600's themselves back when I was using an antenna with them in BeyondTV. However, I live 35+ miles from the towers, so I would often lose stations, which is why I needed to make the switch to QAM.

[sic0048]

I'll throw in my 2cents here.

I have a HDHomeRun and when using the new beta's (both SageTV beta and HDHR firmware beta), the HDHR is 100 times easier to set up. It also does NOT have the 68 channel limitation anymore. Unfortunately few people have more than 68 free and clear QAM stations. But if you do, you should not have a problem getting SageTV and HDHR to work with all the channels.

Make sure you follow the new directions to set up the HDHR. In a nut shell, you set up the channels in the HDHR software as you want (ie enable the clear QAM and disable the encrypted QAM) and then scan the channels in SageTV. Sage reads the HDHR setup file and bam - the good channels are in SageTV and the bad are not.

The thing I like most about the HDHR is the fact that it is a network device. That means no compatibility issues with my computer's hardware. No driver issues, no blue screens of death, etc. It just works. Plus I'm not taking up a PCI slot in case I need it for something else.